


and found

by taibhsearachd



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Nomad: Girl Without a World, Spider-Girl, Spider-Woman (Comic), Young Allies (Marvel)
Genre: Blood, Female Friendships, Found Family, Gen, Minor Injuries, Onslaught warning, POV Third Person, Present Tense, chosen family, spyderladies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 03:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3675552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taibhsearachd/pseuds/taibhsearachd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four lost girls, and the strange family they make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and found

**Author's Note:**

> fred_mouse requested female Marvel characters and found families. <3
> 
> Do not ask me how the last section fits in the timeline re: Spider Verse, current Spider-Woman and current Black Widow plots. Just don't question it. Shh. Comics.

Rikki texted Anya during fourth period, telling her that she wasn't going to be at lunch and not to worry. Anya's known Rikki long enough to know that really means 'something's wrong and you should come find me'. Well. That's probably not what Rikki _meant_ , but it's the truth.

She finds her in the bathroom on the far end of the school, in the farthest stall, muttering things under her breath Anya's pretty sure Cap wouldn't approve of. Anya frowns, and slowly walks over. Rikki goes quiet as she approaches.

"It's me, Rikki. No one else is in here, so open the door."

There's a pause, and then Rikki slides the lock open. Anya waits a second, and then pushes the door open herself.

Rikki's standing there in her underwear, pants shoved in her open bag, while she tries to bandage her calf without falling over. The bandage is loose and sloppy, the ragged wounds peeking out from under them look ugly, and her sock is soaked in blood. Anya hisses involuntarily in sympathy.

"What _happened_?"

"Stupid... robot yesterday. Grabbed me and—"

"And you didn't _say_ anything?"

"Because I didn't want you to make the face you're making now! Look, it's fine, I just started bleeding again in PE, and it soaked through the last bandage... Can you please just help me out?"

Anya gives her a reproving glare, drops her bag next to Rikki's, and crouches down so she can start unwinding the bandage to fix it. She's muttering too, as she winds the bandage back around Rikki's leg, though probably for different reasons than Rikki was. She looks up to see Rikki grinning down at her.

"You remember I don't understand Spanish, right?"

"Thank your lucky stars for that, _mi vida_. _Estúpida_."

" _That_ I understood."

* * *

By now, the process of coming home — scaling the walls of the warehouse to get to the highest window, pushing aside the loose boards there, climbing through and dropping the ten feet to the floor — is so familiar Rikki could do it in her sleep. Probably a good thing, too, because on a day like this when she's so tired her vision keeps blurring, she'd probably break an ankle if her body didn't remember the way so well. She is going to bed. She's going to bed, and she's not getting up for anything, not if aliens are invading or the city is on fire.

At least, that's the plan until she rounds a corner and sees Black Widow in her bedroom, cross-legged on her tattered mattress. Rikki jumps, letting out a strangled scream that echoes down the empty hallway; Natasha's twitch a little, barely bothering to disguise the smile as she stands up. Pressing a hand over her suddenly racing heart, Rikki narrows her eyes in an indignant glare. Thanks to adrenaline, she's not tired anymore.

"What are you _doing_ here?"

"Waiting for you." The _obviously_ goes unspoken, but Rikki's a little annoyed by it anyway; none of that feels like a sufficient explanation for why a superspy broke into her house. Warehouse. Whatever.

Rikki drops her backpack inside the doorway and rubs her eyes. "If this is a Secret Empire thing, I can't really... I haven't really slept in like fifty hours? And the last time we did this I almost died on a full night's sleep, so—"

"It's not about that." Natasha steps out into the hall, starts walking toward the stairs that lead down to the huge empty main room of the warehouse, and Rikki guesses she doesn’t have much choice but to follow.

"Then what—"

"Who have you been sparring with?"

Rikki frowns, surprised by the question. "Uh. Bad... guys...? An— Araña, sometimes."

"That's what I thought."

Rikki's face goes hot and prickly with embarrassment. She knows she's fallen out of practice, but it's not like she has that many willing partners.. Steve's too busy, SHIELD won't acknowledge her existence, Sam and Sharon don't know her...

"I'm doing fine," she mutters defensively.

Natasha chuckles, starting down the stairs. "You are, so far. But you fight like Cap. He may be an acrobat, but he's also a human wrecking ball. You and I are human; we can't fight like that for long without breaking."

"You and—?" Rikki starts to ask, and then stops as they reach the bottom of the stairs and she spots the practice mats on the concrete warehouse floor, covering a good area of a near corner. She stares at them for a moment and then looks up at Natasha. "Do you mean... Are you _training_ me?"

"Sure. Are you up for it now?"

Rikki blinks back tears, too tired to entirely hide them. Taking her out on missions is one thing, but Natasha taking time to come here, to help _her_ instead of the other way around... "Why?"

Natasha smiles, her eyes soft. "Because we're both dancers."

* * *

Anya's finally stopped crying a few hours into the flight. By the time the Quinjet approaches Avengers Tower, she's just numb, forehead pressed to the window as Manhattan passes by beneath them. Rikki's really gone. Atoms. Dead. That's a thing that happened, and it doesn't feel any more real than when Papa died.

The jet lands in silence, besides the engines. No one's waiting for them on the rooftop, and none of them want to say anything as they touch down. When the doors open, Anya stays at the back of the plane and waits for everyone else to get out before she stands up.

Firestar and Gravity are by the edge of the landing pad, talking quietly. Sharon and Steve are still on the plane, and the rest of the Secret Avengers have already vanished inside the tower, apparently done with teenage heroes and their dead friend drama. Anya slinks around the back of the plane and to the far side of the roof, hoping to be gone before anyone can ask her if she's alright. It almost works, too.

A hand catches her shoulder within half a foot of the edge, gentle but firm enough she already knows trying to wriggle free is pointless. She sighs and turns, and jumps a little when she sees who's holding her — not Firestar, not Commander Rogers, but Black Widow.

"Where are you going?"

"Umm... home?" Probably to cry into her pillow and not go to class for a week. Natasha doesn't need to know that part.

"No you're not," Natasha says, towing her away from the edge. Anya tries to dig in her heels, but there's no fighting someone like Natasha without actually _fighting_ her. That doesn't seem worth the broken bones and internal bleeding right now. "Not until you've eaten, and slept."

"I don't want—"

"You haven't slept or eaten in almost twenty-four hours, and you're about to throw yourself off a roof and go spidering across the city. Would Rikki let you do that right now?"

The question makes Anya feel like she just got kicked in the chest. She's silent as Natasha pulls her inside, which seems to be enough of an answer for the Black Widow.

"Then neither will I."

* * *

Jess has discovered that the best place for eating pity ice cream at 2 AM is in the upper corner of the kitchen in Avengers Tower. If she retreats to her room, everyone knows exactly where to find her, and if anyone's heard what happened yet... Well, Carol's been known to hover outside her windows when she's really worried and Jess won't let her in. Lurking in the corner of the kitchen, she doesn't have to go far to get another pint if (when) she finishes this one, the ceilings are high enough and the night lighting dim enough that she's comfortably shadowed, and even the Avengers don't tend to go looking for spiders in corners without a reason to.

Except, apparently, for Natasha Romanoff, who walks in and looks directly at Jess' hiding place like she expected her to be there all along. Jess freezes, spoon halfway to her mouth, hoping Natasha's not actually looking at her and the shadows will conceal her... but no such luck.

"Of all your powers, invisibility is still not one of them."

Jess shoves the spoon in her mouth and speaks around it. "What."

Natasha purses her lips in what Jess thinks might be disapproval. Or sympathy? She's really not sure, but she's leaning toward the former. After all, she did hit Natasha's... person, and if she's here to defend Clint's honor or something, Jess would like to get it over with.

"Darlene Penelope Wright won't be a problem anymore." She says it like an apology, which is enough to make Jess hesitate before she answers.

"Well." She shoves her spoon back into her half-melted ice cream and leaves it there. "That's nice. Doesn't really matter. Clint and I are... done."

"I know."

Jess decides not to ask how. "So are you going to tell me he's an idiot, but he's a dumb broken puppy who deserves a second chance?"

"No," she says, finally moving away from the door and into the kitchen. "I was just wondering how much ice cream you were planning to eat."

"Well... I can't get drunk, so I think the answer is 'as much as I bloody want'." She shoves another spoonful in her mouth defiantly, even though it's starting to make her a little queasy. Pity ice cream is never as good an idea as it sounds.

"Fair." Natasha opens a drawer, pulls out a spoon, and hops up on the counter. "You feel like coming down and sharing?"

* * *

The muffled sound of Anya's ringtone wakes Jess from a dead sleep, and she panics a little in the moments before she manages to locate her phone (halfway across the room, in the pocket of a discarded pair of pants on the floor). After all, it's the first time Anya's called her since Jess gave her the number — her half-conscious brain can't help conjuring images of trouble too big for one teenage hero to handle, and God, she can _not_ be responsible for letting Carol's kid get killed even if Carol doesn't remember...

"What's wrong?"

The momentary silence on the line does nothing to settle Jess' nerves, but finally, Anya answers, " _What_?"

"I thought..." Jess frowns, and pulls the phone away from her ear for a second to check the time. "Anya, it's nearly five in the morning. If you're not in immediate danger to life and-or limb, _why are you calling me_?"

"Uh. I wanted to ask if you wanted to get breakfast." She pauses. "Honestly, I didn't think Avengers really slept. Sorry."

"Every now and then, we do..." Jess mutters. But not anymore — the shot of adrenaline when she woke up took care of that. She runs a hand through her hair, carefully untangling it, and sighs. "Where are you right now?"

"Uh... outside your window."

Jess shoots a sharp glance toward the window. Her curtains are drawn, at least, sparing her the experience of an upside-down Spider-Girl waving at her while she stands here in her underwear. "How did you... You know what, never mind. Meet me in the lobby. Like a normal person."

Anya snorts. "Like you'd know what normal people are like."

She hangs up before Jess can protest, and most of Jess' indignation has faded by the time she gets dressed and downstairs. She still shoots her a half-hearted glare when she steps out of the elevator. "That was a low blow. I hope you know that."

Anya's laugh wrinkles her nose. "If it makes up for it, I'll buy you all the breakfast meats you want?"

"Of course you will. You woke _me_ up."

* * *

Natasha's whole body aches as she makes her way up the stairs one careful step at a time. Her right hip protests every other step. It seems a small eternity before she reaches her landing, her front door... and freezes. The television's on inside.

She almost pulls her gun, but stops short. It could be Clint. What he would be doing watching TV in _her_ apartment is a whole other question — maybe his cable's out, maybe that building of his finally got blown up while she was away. She tries the knob, finds it unlocked, and pushes it gently open, her whole body braced for an unpleasant surprise.

It doesn't come. Instead, Jess looks toward the door and her face lights up. Anya gasps and throws her arms into the air excitedly. "You're back!"

Natasha stops in the doorway. She looks from the two of them, to the TV, and back. There are two spiderwomen on her couch watching what she now realizes is a children's movie, and somehow this is only mildly surprising. She sighs and closes the door behind her, not bothering to hide the limp or the wince as she starts toward the couch.

"How did you get in?"

Jess shrugs and scoots over on the couch to make room for Natasha. "Clint had to leave town for a thing. He asked me to make sure your cat didn't starve."

The cat in question is currently on Anya's lap, rumbling softly. He glances over at Natasha, eyes slitted. She snorts softly at his smug expression and drops onto the couch next to Jess before arching an eyebrow at Anya.

"And you're here because...?"

"Umm." Anya bites her lip. "Honestly, you have a bigger TV than I do. And since Jess kind of didn't have a childhood... I thought someone should fix that. A little." She smiles sheepishly. "We can leave if you want."

Natasha almost tells them to go. She's exhausted and every inch of her aches, and while she's sure she won't sleep any time soon, she would like a drink and a hot bath. But Anya's eyes are huge and hopeful (whether she means to be giving that look or not), Liho looks so content on Anya's lap she'd would hate to disturb him, and Jess is smirking at her like she already knows Natasha's answer. It is good to see familiar faces again...

"So, Anya, you know who _else_ didn't have a childhood...?"

Jess nearly ends up in Anya's lap trying to avoid Natasha's sharp elbow to her ribs. Anya squeaks in protest, Liho takes off with an indignant yowl, and Natasha takes advantage of the chaos to claim the unattended bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. She smiles, very faintly, as she settles back on the couch.

"You can stay."


End file.
